Jammy

Consider
the fact
that
for 3.8 billion years,
not one
of your pertinent ancestors
was squashed,
devoured,
drowned,
starved,
stuck fast,
untimely wounded
or otherwise deflected
from its life’s
quest
of delivering a
tiny
charge
of genetic material
to the right partner
at the right moment
to perpetuate
the only
possible
sequence
of hereditary combinations
that could result –
eventually,
astoundingly,
and all too briefly –
in you.

This is a found poem. The text comes from Bill Bryson’s book A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003). The poem appeared on the lovely verbatim found poetry site. (Ailsa)